Discovering Folk Music (Electronic book text)

From indigenous music to Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing OThis Land Is Your LandO side-by-side at the pre-inaugural concert for our first African American presidentNfolk music has been at the center of AmericaOs history. Thomas Jefferson wooed his bride-to-be with fiddle playing. Stephen Foster captured the mood of our country in transition. The Carter Family adapted music from across the pond to Appalachia. Paul Robeson carried folk music of many lands to the world stage. Woody GuthrieOs dust bowl ballads spoke to the common man, while Sixties protest music put folk on the map, following the Kingston TrioOs hit, OTom Dooley.OFolk music has evolved with AmericaOs changing landscape, celebrating its multi-cultural traditions. From Irish step dancers to rap, parlor songs to Dixieland, blues to classical, Discovering Folk Music presents the genre as surprisingly diverse, every bit the product of our national melting pot.Demonstrating continuing relevance of folk music in our everyday livesNwhile spotlighting an amazing array of personalitiesNthe book provides special emphasis on the folk revival era, when Dylan, Baez, Odetta, and Peter, Paul and Mary sang out and influenced the next generation, including Shawn Colvin, Ani DiFranco, and others. These deep roots pervade with today's artists on the fringes of folk. Interviews with such legends as Janis Ian, Tom Paxton, Jean Ritchie, and Nora Guthrie, WoodyOs daughter, add color. Discovering Folk Music is a ground-breaking look at 21st-century folk music in our rapidly changing digital world, family-friendly while ripe for rediscovery by the Woodstock generation.